Hola my fellow Baja Mountain King enthusiasts. I just wanted to post a quick update on the collection. When I posted the collection for sale a few months ago, I got some inquires right away. Here's where we stand. The collection is tentatively sold in the Spring of 2014 to a great guy up in Northern CA. I won't get into the details, but to make a long story short, the collection of 4.4 adult Baja Mountain Kings is still for sale to the right person at $11,500 that can come up with the money right now. Think about it. You could own them now and potentially produce around twenty smoking babies next summer and make your investment back and then have years of enjoyment to boot with these guys. Due to life circumstances(needed focus on work), I really wanna move these guys soon. So again please get in touch with me if you are interested. Email me at allanbartlett at gmail dot com or call me on my cell (949)677-5078 BTW, I have a pair of 2012 babies also for sale that I was holding back, but have decided to sell. They are $1250 for the pair.

Time To Move On

It's with mixed feelings that I am announcing the sale of my entire collection of Juarez agalma. I have had a blast working these kingsnakes for most of my adult life. It's time for me to move on to other priorities in my life. The good news is someone is going to be buying the absolute best collection of mountain kings maybe ever in the herp industry. I have 4.4 adults available. I most likely won't break up the group because I want to sell them all as a group to make my life easier. The price is $11,500. Please email me ASAP if you have any interest. Serious inquiries only. Thanks. BTW, most of the pics of these animals are on the website here in one shape or another. I will cobble them together as necessary for the people that are interested.

Gettin Jiggy With It

Here's a little Juarez snake porn from the other night with two really light orange animals.

2012 Babies For Sale

This a trio (1.2) of my Bartlett line Juarez babies from 2012. The male is on top and the other two below him are the girls. They are for sale at $1400 for the trio. If interested, please email me... allanbartlett at gmail dot com

Spring 2013

It's been a long time since the last post. I had a decent year with the Juarez animals in 2012 as usual. Those guys breed year after year for me. I feel I don't really do anything special either to accomplish that. I think I hatched out about 21 animals if I remember. Once again I had a high male to female ratio and had to make some deals to sell the extra males. Lucky for me I produce some damn nice animals and it's usually not that hard to move em. I have three pairs left of the 2012 babies. I'm not in any hurry to move them, but if anyone is interested, you can certainly shoot me an email or phone call. I want to thank all my customers over the years for choosing to do business with me. I had a good run with the Martir animals. I've had them since 2003. I made a decision during the winter that I would sell the colony of 2.3 animals including the "Pinky" one that I produced. It was a hard decision, but they are now in the capable hands of my good friend John Domke. In the future I will be referring all inquiries for Martir animals to John and a few other friends I know that may have them available. As far as this years outlook, it appears that I will have three out of my five adult Juarez girls ready to produce. The other two were too skinny coming out hibernation and they are getting the year off. This is my fault for not feeding them as well as I should have last year during their short activity window. Stay tuned as always here. I will post updates as needed.

All Quiet

All quiet on the Western Front here. The eggs are all still incubating. I've lost a couple agalma eggs due to whatever reasons and three Martir eggs out of the five that I thought were good, went bad. Two are still good so my fingers are crossed that I get two Martir babies. I hope everyone is having a good Summer. BTW, I'll have a few yearling Juarez agalma for sale down at the San Diego Show in a two weeks. If your down there, pop by and say hi.

Yeah Baby!!!

The breeding season is officially done this year for the Bartlett agalma collection and what a smash bang way to end the season. The het(I'm presupposing) female Martir who gave me the Pinkie/Lavendar girl two years ago just laid her clutch this morning...five eggs, all good it appears. Now I'm really confused how I got five bad eggs from the first Martir girl. I used the same male for this second clutch. Obviously he wasn't shooting blanks like I assumed. Maybe I missed the first female's cycle? Who knows. I am just really happy needless to say about this last clutch. If I'm right about this being a recessive gene, then the odds would say that I will hatch another little pinkie gem.

Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs!

Did I mention it's egg laying time? Okay so here's the tally for this year. I only have one female left to lay. As of right now I have 28 fertile eggs out of a total laid of 40 for the Juarez girls. That comes out right at 70% fertility rate which has been about my average since I have been breeding these agalmas. As for the Martirs, my first female crapped out on me and laid five bad eggs. Ughhh. This doesn't give me much hope for the second clutch due to be laid today or tomorrow. The same male is the breeder for both. My theory is that it is the boys fault when I get bad eggs because of no viable sperm. I didn't get any samples from him this year to check out under the microscope. I'm hoping for a miracle on the second clutch, but I'm pessimistic to be sure. So I should have lots of little Juarez babies out and about around three months from now. If you ever wanted to get a pair of these from me, this year would seem to be a good year. Although I've been getting screwed on the sex ratio with high males the last few years, I'm hoping the odds turn around this year and I have more girls hatch.

Egg Laying Has Commenced

I had my first Juarez female lay seven eggs yesterday. Ony two appeared fertile in that clutch....bummer. However this morning I have my nicest Juarez female laying a huge clutch. Nine eggs are already laid and they all appear fertile. She looks to have one or two more to go to finish. I'm pretty giddy about this clutch. More egg laying updates in the next few days to come.

April Update

So it's been a few weeks since the last blog. A lot is going on right now, mostly good, but one tragedy. It appears that all the adult female Juarez(5) and both Martir girls are gravid. In fact a couple of Juarez girls have already started refusing food are deep in the blue for their pre-lay shed. Fingers are crossed for good fertility.

On the tragedy side, I had smaller male Juarez holdback male get killed and eaten by a first time breeder female. This is the first time this has ever happened to me in working with agalma. I had a female Santa Cruz zonata a while back try to eat the male any time I would put him in the cage, but never had any signs of that with my Juarez line or Martir animals. My routine is that I feed all the females, wait a day, and then rotate in the males during breeding season. So I came down to the garage to check on and feed everyone about three days since I last checked on everyone. When I pulled out her cage, the first thing I noticed was that the paper towel I have in the cage to help during feeding(so that shavings don't get stuck on the thawed mouse)was all balled up. Then a split second later I saw the last few inches of the male sticking out of the female! Holy shit I said. "You bitch!" I was furious with her. I said their is no way I am letting you keep this male in your gullet and I started pulling him out of her inch by inch. I thought their might be a chance that the male was still alive but he was deader than a doornail. So sad. This was probably my best looking male I had produced and raised. Needless to say that now I know this female is a known cannibal, she will always have a chaperone looking on(ME)!) when a male is with her again. I'm hoping that the little male bred with her before he got black widowed so I have something to show from his genes.

First Hookups Of The Year

So tonight I put the male Martir in with one of my two Martir girls and almost immediately this hookup occurred. I also put the male Juarez boys in with the girls and noticed at least one hookup with them. I'll check for sperm plugs in the morning and hopefully put them under the microscope to check their fertility. Such an exciting time of year.

Excitement Is In The Air

It's been just about two weeks since I turned the heat on for all the adults. During that time each of the adults has eaten three times already. All the females are in the blue right now getting ready for their first shed after hibernation. Almost to a tee, as soon as this shed is done, the females are ready to mate. This is what has been the cycle for them that I have noticed over the years. I plan to rotate in males as soon as they shed. I have the microscope ready to see who is shooting blanks and who is shooting bullets(live sperm). Usually the males will leave a sperm plug/sample in some part of the sweater box. If no good sperm is seen, I will put in another male to breed the female and repeat this process for all pairings.

Did I mention I was excited about the Martirs breeding again this year? Hell yes. I hope the male is ready and fertile because he needs to service both Martir ladies. I'm gonna guess that the het lavendar lady will lay three eggs this year and the other female will lay six(she is a lot bigger than the het female).

Warning About Buying Zonatas From Jerry Kruse

I want to warn my readers and the zonata enthusiast community about a huge problem that has developed over the past few weeks. A zonata breeder from New York named Jerry Kruse has sold some "zonata diseased" animals to another person and will not refund his money or remedy the situation. Not only is this highly unethical in my opinion, it risks poisoning the entire zonata community.

For those that don't know, zonatas have been known to get a pathogen generically named "zonata disease" in the wild and in private collections. Not much is known about this disease except that it is highly contagious and has ruined many zonata colonies over the years. At this point until everything is sorted out, I would not buy or receive any animals from Jerry Kruse until all the facts are known about his collection's health status.

I'm posting this here because the moderator over at Kingsnake.com has been deleting threads with some great information.

*******3/1/12 UPDATE**********************

Please go to Fauna Classifieds BOI(Board of Inquiry) and read through all the damning evidence of people that have been burned by Jerry Kruse. I hope this is the last I ever hear of him. DO NOT do business with him under any circumstances unless you want to potentially go through what Stu Tennyson is going through right now. **************4/16/13 UPDATE************************ Well it appears that Mrs Karma has come around and bit Jerry Kruse in the ass. I have heard from multiple sources that Mr Kruse's home was raided by US Fish and Wildlife agents last week. His zonata website has been scrubbed, with all the links gone. Only a front page remains. He is reported to have posted on his Facebook page "the world has ended". Some of the things that the US F&W agents were interested in were the Oregon zonata(state protected and therefore illegal to have in NY and a Lacey Act violation) and collecting various reptiles in the New Jersey Pine Barrens(this is all a protected area and no take zone). I have to admit that I am enjoying this schadenfreude. The guy had it coming to himself. My advice to you Jerry is plead guilty and throw yourself at the mercy of the court. If this is only a first time offense, you probably will not even get jail time. In the future, if you do something illegal, my advice to you is not to post these facts on a public forum such as Facebook or the Fauna Board of Inquiry Forum where you basically admitted to several overt illegal acts. How stupid are you. Now I'm getting hits on this blog by people from the New York Times! Can't wait to see what they write.

The Heat Is On......For Babies & Adults

Well I just turned the heat on tonight for all the adults. The babies got their heat a week ago. Everyone is doing great it appears. I lost two babies in hibernation due to mother nature. Oh well. I suppose it happens like that in the wild to. I'm always bummed when I lose a little guy or girl, but sometimes there is nothing you can do.

I've got my fingers crossed that it will be a good year. The het lavender Martir girl should produce this summer plus the regular Martir girl. I'll have five Juarez females that are ready and a San Jacinto zonata that I raised from a wild caught baby in 2007. This will be her first year.

The yearling lavender Martir girl is finally starting to grow a little, LOL. I'm hopeful I can keep her on a every three day feeding pace like she has been on for the last two months. My goal is to have her ready in three more years, sigh. You just can't rush this local of zonata in my experience. I wish I could. People are pounding down my door for babies. All I can say is just be patient.

I still have three 2010 male Juarez Agalmas available and four male 2011 Juarez babies. The price is $250 to $400 each. Email me if you have an interest and we can talk more.

I hope everyone has a great breeding season for your kingsnakes. Check back here often as I will be updating the blog more now that it is Spring.

Pinkie/Lavender Martir Girl Update

Okay I will relent a little here on the naming of my little Martir Pinkie girl. Over at Kingsnake.com, a lot of people are saying that calling this girl "axanthic" is incorrect because axanthic means lacking yellow pigmentation. Okay okay I got it. She's not axanthic, but she is damn cool :) My guess is that this gene will prove to be a recessive one. Time will tell. Some are saying her color is more lavender than pink. I think it's a little of both. In any event, I have had her back for over a week now and she has eaten twice for me on scented pinkies. She has an awesome feeding response now once she gets the scent of that lizard scented pinkie. She rips that pinkie from the tongs. I love it. Here is a pic I just took of her tonight eating.

More Pics....

Axanthic "Pinkie" Martir Update

As of today, she has finally taken her first unscented pinkie and is well on her way to becoming a great addition to my collection. Here is the first high quality photo of her ever, compliments of Bob Hansen.

2011 Baby Pictures......

I was lucky enough this morning to secure the services of good friend and excellent photographer Bob Hansen to take good quality photos of all the babies I still have left and some holdback animals. The results are already starting to trickle in from Bob as he sorts out the various pics. Here is a teaser....my best two hypo females from this year....

NARBC Anaheim Show

Just FYI....I'll be around all weekend at the big West Coast NARBC Anaheim Reptile Show with some babies on a table that I'm sharing with a friend. I hope to see everyone there.

Group Shot

This is a group pic of both clutches that are out so far. There's three from the first clutch and seven from the second. You can easily see which ones are clutchmates. The three from the first clutch are all bright light orange and hardly any black. The second clutch all have high band counts.

2nd Clutch Pipping Starting......

I just took this picture a few minutes ago. Poor little guy barely has enough room to poke his head out.

It Keeps Getting Better.....

I love this shot.

2nd One Out......

I can't stand the suspense. Come out already.

1st One Is Out.....

And man is he/she a beauty.

First Clutch Is Pipping

After 89 long days, the first head appeared out of the egg today.

Last Clutch Laid

The last of my four Juarez females dropped her eggs today. She went five for six on fertility it looks like. So for those of you keeping score at home, I have a total of 18 fertile eggs now incubating. As always, I'm excited to see what hatches out in about three months. BTW, this is proof that the microscope paid off, especially on this female. I was able to get good sperm samples from the two males she was with. One male sample had no apparent swimmers floating on the wet slide. The other male had lots of swimmers that I could see. At least I know who the dad is now and this is proof that the microscope is a valuable tool. I continue to believe that if a female lays infertile eggs, it is almost always the fault of bad/poor sperm from the male, but I'm open to hear otherwise from people who may have a different opinion.

3rd Clutch Is Down

This morning I woke up to my biggest Juarez female having laid eight eggs....all look good. This leaves one girl still to lay. Right now I'm incubating 13 fertile eggs. I'll probably get another 4 or 5 from the last girl. So far a pretty good year. Here is a pic of her last night laying her third egg out of eight.

First Eggs Of The Year

Well they came a little early from previous years, but the first Juarez female has laid her eggs. She laid a dud right after her pre-lay shed, but tonight she dropped 4 out five good eggs. I'm really stoked about this clutch. It is the first time ever I've bred my really best light orange male to my best light orange female. Here is a pic of her laying tonight and a pic of the male sire.

Prego Females

So I was just down in the garage cleaning a few cages and I snapped off a few pictures of some of my adult females. They are all very pregnant and already starting to go into their pre-lay shed. I also got a great pic again of Mrs Pinkie Martir in situ in her little vermiculite cup over the heat. She seems to love this place the best to digest her meals. Lastly is a pic of an upcoming male from 2008 that should be ready to breed next year if I push him. Enjoy. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them.

Loving The Microscope

So I was down feeding the little guys earlier today and I wanted to see if I could get another sperm sample from a first year breeder male. So I threw him in with the girl that my twelve year old male hit up a few days ago. They hooked up as you can see from the picture below. They were probably hooked up for about twenty minutes and then he left a good sample for me to analyze on the shavings. After setting up the wet slide with a drop of water on top of the sample and a half drop of red dye to stain the slide, I proceeded to look at it. I searched far and wide on the slide on all different magnifications and couldn't find a live swimmer. So this tells me that he was either to small to produce good sperm or he is just plain shooting blanks. The microscope is already paying for itself. It's to bad because this is just a smokin' male holdback from 2007.

Microscope Update

After some refreshers on how to set up a wet slide and after practicing the scope on various pond scum organisms, I finally hit pay dirt earlier tonight. I had been trying to get/find a good sperm sample from any of my males the past few weeks, but I was stopped out in this endeavor. Tonight I threw in my oldest male(12 years) with my number four female. I had thought about holding this girl back this year from breeding, but she has really been eating like a pig the last few weeks so tonight was her lucky night. The pair almost immediately hooked up. After about a half hour hookup, the male left a nice looking sperm plug on the paper towel in the cage. Talk about excitement. I rushed into action and set up the microscope.

It took a few minutes to finally find what I was looking for, but I finally got to see some Agalma living sperm, LOL! It was exciting to see all those little swimmers looking for an egg to fertilize. I would find them in pockets on the wet slide, but I'm pretty sure this boy will produce some babies this year. It will be interesting to see what the fertility rate will be for this girl this year. I'm just wondering if I need to see many more little swimmers on the slide or if this will do the job. It's my first time looking at this so time will tell.

Pinkie Update

This animal is testing the limits of my patience, but I guess she is worth it, correct? She is still not eating regularly. I had to force feed again tonight for the seventh time via a pinky pump. I have to say that without a pinky pump device, this little axanthic girl would be dead a long time ago. So for that I am thankful. I just want her to start eating normally. I snapped a quick pic of her tonight before she got blasted an emulsified pinkie into her gut. (Click on it to enlarge the photo)

Pinky Pump Update

So the little Martir Pinkie digested her meal of emulsified mouse baby via the Pinky Pump. This is the first normal crap she has taken. I will try to feed her again today a normal pinky and a scented one, if that doesn't work, she is gettin' pumped again tonight.

Pinkie Update

So I brought Mrs Pinkie Martir out of hibernation about a month ago. She has still been stubbornly refusing to eat on her own. So I force fed her a couple of mousetails and she digested those okay. The last two mousetails(out of six) she has regurged :( What to do. She is skating on thin ice. So I broke down today and bought the device I've never used and thought I would ever have to use on any kingsnake baby....the dreaded "Pinky Pump". It's so ironic that the device is named that and I have named the baby "Pinkie". Anyway, since I have never used this contraption before, I had to do a test run on a Juarez baby male from last year that ironically just started eating well. It's really a pain in the ass to use. I do have to admit though that it works...at least so far. We'll see if both animals I used it on earlier tonight hold the emulsified pinkies down. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Microscope Power

So I just purchased an Omano OM118-B4 Microscope from microscope.com plus their starter kit with prepared and blank slides, stain, book, etc. I feel i got a great deal. I'm excited to be able to see how fertile my male agalmas are this year and going forward into future years. Gone are the days where I keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. I'm getting scientific about this now! This feels like being back in high school biology class. I can't wait.

P.S I'm lucky agalmas are not venomous or I would be dead a long time ago, LOL. I got tagged again tonight on the finger by a very hungry young adult male. It was my fault of course. I tried to pick him up and move him over the the paper towel on the other side of the cage and he was having none of it. As soon as I tried picking him up, he wheeled around and grabbed my finger(if only it was a mouse), little bastard! Oh well. The males have been fully heated up for a few days now. They are fully alert and waiting for that first meal.

Granite Spiny Lizards

So the last few years as I have taken trips out to the deserts and mountains, my fascination with Granite Spiny Lizards(Sceloporus Orcutti) has grown. They are the prettiest Spiny Lizards IMO save for maybe the really cobalt blue Spiny Lizards from mainland Mexico(Sceloporus Minor). It's easy to tell the difference between males and females in the adults. A few weeks ago I was able to capture a couple of adults and set them up in an aquarium. I'm new to their husbandry. I know they need both warmth and UV light to be successful. I'm also going to vary their diet as much as possible between mealworms, crickets, waxworms, and local insects around the house here in Irvine that I will collect.

They really are cool lizards. They are kings and queens of their rocky outcrops where they live. Good luck trying to catch them by hand in the middle of the day. They are very wary lizards. I've found that the best way to catch them is either to noose them or coax them out of a rock crack with a coat hanger or other type of stick. I've also heard of people catching them early in the morning under artificial cover by rocky outcrops when they are cold and slower moving.

My plan is to try and breed them for kicks. If anyone has experience getting them to breed I would love to chat and hear about it. If I'm lucky enough to get babies, I will be giving them away to good homes. Here's a pic of the pair that I have...

More 2010 Pictures(females)

2010 Pictures

Here are a few pictures of some holdover babies from last year. All are Juarez stock. My Blackberry camera takes pretty decent pictures. Clink on each picture to enlarge them. These are all males